10 TRW RF-4C Crash at 1986 RAF Brawdy Airshow

[Rhino power]

During a search this evening for all things F-4 related I came across a site which had some paper clippings and photos of the 10 TRW RF-4C which crashed with the sad loss of both crew during the airshow at Brawdy in 1986, in the paper clipping it is said that eye witnesses observed something fall away from the jet during a fast and low pass, do any ppruners know what actually happened?, it also appears that both crewmen managed to eject, but possibly outside of the seats envelope?, if anyone can shed any light on this I'd be grateful.

Regards, RP

[Hummingfrog]

I was an off duty SAR pilot at the airshow and from what I recall something may have fallen from the a/c. I believe it was a loss of control when low and slow in a turn towards the airfield that caused the crash. The wreckage ended up in shallow water with the sad loss of both crew:( I can't remember if they managed to eject.

HF

[Regie Mental]

I was at this show and remember chatting to one of the crew before their display. However I don't recall anything falling off the jet. Instead I was told by a 52ndTFW F-4G pilot a couple of years later that it had been pilot error. Be that as it may, it was a tragic accident and despite the prompt arrival of the SAR Sea King both crew had been unable to eject.

Reg

[hairyclameater]

Mmmmm..unfortunately remember it well.

Weather was pretty standard for Brawdy - bloody awful.
a/c took off, performed a "medium" speed run R-L ( South - North along 02/20) turned and flew a slow and dirty pass in opposite direction. Whilst cleaning up and turning on the crowd 45 to prepare for final high speed run, it was lost from sight behind one of Brawdy's many "humps". I was in extreme crowd right ( south end of display runway and still couldnt see the accident area (St Brides bay)

Recall that radio 1 reported the accident within the hour pronouncing two crew dead - incredibly quick news turnround considering the location.

Local tv news had the sad sight of the "AR" coded fin sticking out of the water like a beached shark.

Presume that there were hundreds of eye witnesses as the sands of the bay are a superb holiday location, even in such typical Pembrokeshire weather.Can only imagine the sight of a sick rhino crashing into the water just a few hundred feet from the beach.

I have some shots of the machine, including a couple taken during the slow pass, looking mighty impressive with streams of vapour off the wing tips. As a phantom phreak , I watched the aircraft intently and cant recall seeing anything fall off or indeed anything untoward with it.

[The Fin]

Was also at said show and remember the incident quite well - my family live with good view of crash site. The crew was fairly junior team, agreed to do flypast on RTB, during flypast, were told by ATC that a panel had fallen off (subsequently recovered I think), aircraft went around and crashed during this manoeuvre.

Very sad, and one of several accidents in the area (Air India jumbo washed up on the beach for many months, and uncle R Pasfield deposited Hawk on the hill!)

[jimgriff]

I was also at the show and witnessed the crash.

They did a low and dirty pass along the runway, I remember the RIO waving to the crowd as they went past. As they headed out towards St Brides Bay (Newgale) the nose came up and it started to roll to stbd. There was the unmistakable sound of both seats going off with me looking at my mate and stating "Sh*t! They've just ejected". I remember Rescue 190 getting off the ground in an absurdly short time and weaving around the parked cars. I remember thinking that the MAEOP had better be strapped down or he would have been on the wall! Both crew were dead on arrival of the chopper as they wetre probably ejected downwards at a very low height. However, by all accounts chutes had deployed and were alla round the wreckage. There seemed to be tons of fuel all around nNewgale beach fore weeks after too.

The show was also remembered for a load of Hunters doing a long and low, high speed pass earlier in the show. The noise will never be forgotten.

[factanonverba]

Sad day indeed. I was an instructor there at the time. A panel was recovered from the airfield, after an object was seen to fall from the a/c after its very fast and very low pass. The crew were instucted at the time, about the fact that something had been seen to fall from the a/c, and they were advised to abandon the remainder of their demonstration and land asap. They declined and continued on. During their repositioning over the bay to the S, the a/c crashed into Newgale bay. The panel, I believe, was later identified as being part of an external engine cover.

[Rhino power]

Thanks for the replies guys, in case anyones interested, below is the link to the site were I found the newspaper clippings.

Regards, RP

http://www.midwaysailor.com/photos/phantom.html

[hairyclameater]

JIMGRIFF Re:-

"The show was also remembered for a load of Hunters doing a long and low, high speed pass earlier in the show. The noise will never be forgotten"

No way!! Not at that show! Hunters had long since left Brawdy in '86! Only one at the show was unfortunately G-HUNT
Not a blue note any where!!

Must check my prints to see if theres anything missing off the a/c - surely simply loosing "a panel" (such as cvix at Coventry and GAF Tonka at Leuchars this year) wouldnt have lead to a catastrophic crash? Are there any official crash reports available??

As a follow up, the Alconbury show 3 days later included a 4 ship RF4C missing man in memorial to the lost crew.

Two years later I had again the misfortune of witnessing a graphic Phantom crash when the RAF display ship went in after failing to pull out of a loop. RAF Abingdon - practising for the show on the Friday.

Both so Tragic - at this time of year "we will remember them".

[Chris Kebab]

For what it's worth I also recall it being put down as aircrew error.

Sad thread this one, had forotten about Uncle Ray, great instructor, true gent.

[treadigraph]

Hairy:

Week or so before Abingdon show, September 1988, remember watching RAF Phantom at Duxford which put the wotsits up me... same crew? Always wondered...

[Neil Porter]

This is taken from an RAF accident report:

"On 23 September 1988, the crew of XV428 flew to RAF Abingdon to carry out a display practise prior to the air display the next day..
On arrival at Abingdon, they overflew the airfield at 2000ft before running in for their practice. During this overflight, they confirmed that the minimum height for the display was to be 500ft and they discussed the position of the display line and crowd centre. They were passed the surface wind as being between 240 & 330
degrees at 10 to 20 kts with occasional gusts to 30kts.

Having cleared the airfield area, XV428 then ran in from the west along the display axis parallel to and north of runway 08 with the crowdline 780ft to their right.
The aircraft was well to the right of crowd centre after completing a left 360 degrees hard turn since no allowance appeared to have been made for the strong wind. It was seen to roll out of the turn and immedietly enter a very hard pull up using full reheat.
As it approached the top of the loop, the aircraft appeared to be slower and lower than usual and at the apex, it was seen to fly in the inverted position for several seconds; the pilot appeared to be 'pushing' and maintaining level flight. During the second half of the loop, the initial pitch rate to the vertical appeared slow and at the vertical the aircraft was alarmingly low. From there on the pull became increasingly hard and some wing rock occured and just before impact the aircraft achieved a nose up attitude of 10-15 degrees but with a massive rate of descent. The Phantom impacted tail first some 819ft from and parellel to the crowdline. It disintigrated immedietly and wreckage came no closer than 400ft to the crowdline. The crew were killed on impact with the ground."
A very sad day indeed at Abingdon, RIP Flt lt Lackman & Flt Lt Thompson..

[Argus]

... and on 11 Nov, when I stand at the War Memorial in the little New South Wales village where I live, in addition to family members and other Fleet Air Arm friends killed on HM's service, I will remember Lieutenant David Starling, who lost his life at Brawdy in 1966 because he delayed ejecting from a Hunter T8 with an engine fire on take off, to allow his student pilot, Sub Lieutenant Peter Lewis, to eject safely; Sub Lieutenant 'Robbie' Bremner, Lagonda driver extraordinaire and 'sea daddy' at the Royal Naval College, who lost his life in a Hunter GA 11 accident in St Brides Bay in 1967; and Sub Lieutenant Gordon Still, a term mate at the Royal Naval College, who lost his life at sea in a Gannet Mk3 accident whilst a member of the then Brawdy based 849 Naval Air Squadron.

"Lest we forget".

[Chris Kebab]

Chris and Big Jack. Another two good mates. You forget how bad the accident rate was prior to the early 90s.

[hairyclameater]

Treadigraph-

certainly was the same crew, also seen to be very low on recovery from the loop at the Finningley show.We lost a RAF Phantom display in '89 but the OCU was back with a vengeance in '90 with a stonking solo- without a full loop in the sequence.One forgets how much oomph thoses speys had - great memories - thanks to all those display crews!!

CK-

was the accident rate that bad in the early 90s??- I can think of at least as many serious and not so serious prangs during the 90s and into C21st. This year in partic.

Argus-

Indeed, most of us, me included only remember the public and /or the ones that reach/ed the media.So many lost doing their "day job"

Worth a thought from all of us.

Slightly off the original thread,I recall seeing a report of a FAA Phantom crash at Abingdon in 1978, again during a display practice- anyone any info?? Certainly wasn't the BoB display in the September.

[Rhino power]

Hairy, I think the crash you're thinking of may be the one Robert Prest mentions in his book, a Tac Fighter Meet is apparently the venue and while preparing for a low pass along the runway the Phantom sinks toward the ground and crashes, the Nav is killed in the impact but somehow the pilot ejects but is paralysed and has no memory of the accident, maybe someone can confirm?

Regards, RP

[BEagle]

I saw the same Phantom display at Coningsby in 1988 and also thought it looked pretty close to the edge....

[hairyclameater]

RP

Thanks for that- didnt know Abingdon ever hosted TFMs!!

Sad loss - would like to know more


Anyone???

[Chris Kebab]

Bit of confusion creeping in here, or maybe it's me!

I am sure Bob Prest was refering to an 892 F-4K crash at Leuchars sometime in the summer of 78, one in which the pilot would prefer not to to recall even if he could. Terrible and totally avoidable. I don't recall any RAF or FAA F-4 accident at Abingdon before the one mentioned earlier.

Hairy - no figures to hand but I still suspect the accident rate for the late 70s and 80s was worse than the 90s. Recall going to an awful lot of funerals over that period, sadly.

No doubt someone will now post a consolidated list proving me wrong!

[treadigraph]

Thanks Hairy...

Think it was the last year of Phantom ops with the RAF (was that 1990?) that the display aircraft performed an absolutely cracking show at the North Weald Fighter Meet, no doubt demonstrating that there was plenty of life in the old dog yet... And I didn't feel uncomfortable watching it.

The display culminated with a downhill landing on 02, hard braking locked both mainwheels, plumes of smoke from the Dunlops and eventually a loud "enough" in the form of the main tyres disintegrating... rubber everywhere... Well, that's how I remember it anyway!

Treadders

[Rhino power]

Chris Kebab, you're right, it was Leuchars and not Abingdon where the F-4K crashed that Bob Prest mentions, I had the 'beer goggles' on when I posted the reply, well thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!:O

Regards, RP

[hairyclameater]

treadders-
ooops!, not the best way to remember a display, I like to recall Phantoms blasting through and rocket climbing into the blue (or more typically 8/8!) surrounded by a halo of vapour! - awesome.
RAF flew the Phantom until Autumn '92 (Good God - just realised that was 11 years ago!!), no solo in '91 for some reason but 74 had the honour of performing the last UK Phantom displays during the '92 season using 2 a/c with joint 56 & 74 sqn markings. This season was'nt without mishaps however as the AAR probe door fell off whilst practising at Mildenhall- landed in someones back garden -ouch! From then on the dirty barrel roll was replaced with level fly bys - much more photogenic and less stressfull on the old girls.

RP/CK-

thanx for the info - I'm sure I've seen Abingdon mentioned somewhere - I'll do some more digging.
Apparantly 4 Phantoms were lost in '78- 2 FG1s (May & Nov) and 2 FGR2s- (July & August) Presume the Naval one you refer to would be XT868, 12 May.

[treadigraph]

Must have been '92 then - like I say, a fantastic display it was, as I recall much of it was tight to the airfield but not at all on the edge... there was probably a height restriction from Stansted, so no rocket rides to the stratosphere. The landing was probably a bit hot, and caught out by the downslope - not the only one over the years, as some video footage I've seen bears out...!

[27mm]

Does anyone remember Pigpen's F4 display onetime at Coningsby? Recall him doing some kind of slow speed barrel roll and getting severely caught out by the speed switches! On a more positive note John Connor gave a cracking F4 display at Wildenrath (back in '82 I think), even if he was on 19 Sqn....

[Samuel]

I'm not sure where,[airfield] but that excellent UK book on the Phantom describes a double ejection following the nose-cone opening just after take-off!

[Double Hush]

You're not thinking of the RAF Phantom on approach to Alconbury are you? I think it was on a PD when the radar nose cone unlatched and swung open. The pilot wasn't able to control it (not unsurprisingly) and both crew safely ejected. What is so memorable about this one is that a 'spotter' sat in the undershoot, with a motor wind camera, caught everything on film. From this comes that unbelievable series of shots of the Phantom disintegrating bit by bit as it impacts mother earth.

[ShyTorque]

I was also at Finningley in 88 and I concur with Hairy's observation that the Phantom was right on the edge during that display practice. I can remember seeing the onset of wing rock at the bottom of the loop. Shame they got it wrong at Abingdon and lucky it wasn't the following day when the crowds would have been there. I flew over there a week or two back and I think the outline of the impact is still just visible on the grass, even after all these years. :ugh:

[Neil Porter]

My father & younger brother were watching the display practices at Abingdon from by the Air Traffic tower in 88 - which was close to the 08/26 display line for those Bof B displays.... and remembers the Phantom very vividly.

At my Abingdon Fayre event this year, i spoke to a local who remembered the crash, and he said he , at that time he lived on the wootton road ( just outside the eastern boundary off RWY 26), and was watching the practicies from his garden........ and preceeded to tell me that when the Phantom impacted, a big chunk of engine i think he said went into his garden / shed!

It pi**es me off when you get people asking to see the film footage of a crash immedietly after something like this if you have ie: video filmed it..... i know this is going off thread abit but i was very lucky to escape death back in July this year at Duxford with the unfortunate & sad RNHF Firefly accident - i was on a hedgeline filming the aircraft outside the airfield near Duxford village when i realised it was going pear shaped which was more or less in front of me so just ran for it & prayed.
It crashed 250ft other side of hedge to one side but the amount of photographers & the like wanting to see my bit of film footage of it - unbelievable really considering 2 people just died .
i gave it straight to the Accident Investigation Branch the following week.

[Rev Caption]

Gentlemen,

A bittersweet thread this one! Funny to thing that it is so long ago that Chris and Jack went in. Lovely blokes both of them, and Chris with a young family too. Strange to think back too to Pat's incident with the nose cone opening on finals to Alconbury. If I remember rightly, the nose folded over and blocked the intake, and it was not only the drag of the flat front, but the loss of engine power at such low speed that led to the loss of the jet.

We lost a fair few of the Phantoms in those days, it was after all a beast to fly with lots of little foibles, but we also did a lot of flying. Although there weren't quite so many wars, we certainly flew well close to the edge. I certainly lost a lot of mates and think of them often.

God bless their memory.

Rev C

[Neil Porter]

Rev C - Chris Lackmans son James joined the local Abingdon Air Cadets about 5-7 years ago, i think the family moved down to here to Abingdon not too long after the terrible loss.

[Rev Caption]

Neil,

My lord. James was a baby last time I saw him (literally), just before Chris went on to the Phantom. Where does the time go!

I was really pleased when I heard that Chris got the aeros slot. I saw the display a couple of times, and thought it was pretty good - loud and fast. To be honest, and I am not an aeros afficionado, it was the best one since John Connor's display. Those who saw John's display will know what I mean. If my memory serves JC used to have the "Talking Armpit" in the back didn't he?

I have seen many friends spear in, but I have to tell you that his was the saddest case as the Lackmans were such a lovely couple, and James was the happiest baby I have ever met, or had the pleasure to look after. Jack was a good mate too, but I couldn't describe him as lovely really without losing too much credibility.

I am glad to see him following his dad's footsteps. I hope that he does well.

Thanks for the news, and God Bless

Rev C